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Sir Isaac Newton, Alchemist

Hugh Pickens writes "Natalie Angier writes in The Hindu that it is now becoming clear that Newton spent thirty years of his life slaving over a furnace in search of the power to transmute one chemical element into another. Angier writes, 'How could the ultimate scientist have been seemingly hornswoggled by a totemic pseudoscience like alchemy, which in its commonest rendering is described as the desire to transform lead into gold?' Now new historical research describes how alchemy yielded a bounty of valuable spinoffs, including new drugs, brighter paints, stronger soaps and better booze. 'Alchemy was synonymous with chemistry,' says Dr. William Newman, 'and chemistry was much bigger than transmutation.' Newman adds that Newton's alchemical investigations helped yield one of his fundamental breakthroughs in physics: his discovery that white light is a mixture of colored rays that can be recombined with a lens. 'I would go so far as to say that alchemy was crucial to Newton's breakthroughs in optics,' says Newman. 'He's not just passing light through a prism — he's resynthesizing it.'"

2 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. Explain why Science ASSUMES Evolution as true. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    It is true, I collect evidence supporting Evolution is true, I have no conjecture other than religion is only Societal not Natural.

    When did matter begin to molecularly associate, and when does matter become sentient, and what urge causes the matter to progress this way as though it was a timeless sequence of re-assembl then destroy?

    Why are most scientists Catholic, and wherever there are no Catholics to spread those methods they are Freemasons in their place, and wherever the Freemasons have no standing then you see Jews importing muslims to induce the native population to join a club that eventually gets absorbed into Freemasonry?

    Does that progression of Society to alienation remind you of Creation if not parasitic Recreation?

  2. Re:Unacceptable. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    First, stfu. second, even by their standards "alchemy" was considered a pseudoscience. First you should actually learn something, then run your mouth about it, so go and learn something about that time period and what was and was not considered Science. No one says Newton was not one of the greatest Scientists, but that does not negate the fact that 30 years of his life was wasted on garbage/pseudoscience. But don't you worry your little head over it, since his 1 year of contribution to Science is worth more than 1000 years from you.